Sharon Walden,
Executive Director

P.O. Box 234
Welch, WV 24801

Phone: (304) 436-6181
Fax: (304) 436-6528

safewalden@yahoo.comwww.safewv.org

Southern West Virginia, located in the heart of Appalachia, is a mountainous region with virtually no public transportation. From the 1920s through the 1950s, the area boom was fueled by coal mining money. Coal companies employed the majority of residents and built most of the housing. Over the past four decades, however, the coal companies pulled out of southern West Virginia, leaving in their wake fragmented, declining communities. McDowell County in particular lost more than three-fourths of its population over the past 50 years. The only mining today consists of small mines that pay low wages and offer minimal benefits.

Most of the area’s houses, remnants of former coal camps, are dilapidated and continue to lack basic amenities. McDowell County, home of the largest minority population in West Virginia (approximately 13.7 percent) and the nation’s first war memorial dedicated to African-American Veterans of World War I, has more than 31 percent of its residents living in poverty. Wyoming County and Mercer County have poverty rates of 23 percent and 19 percent respectively.